New govt in driver's seat, car sales continue climb

The revival prompted the SIAM to expect 5-10% growth in car sales in 2014-14

Car sales in India grew for the third month by 6.52 per cent to 199,435 in July.

The revival prompted the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) to expect 5-10 per cent growth in car sales in 2014-14.

"People are coming back to showrooms. We are going to see higher growth in coming months," said Vishnu Mathur, the society's director-general.

"A lot of new models are lined up for launch ahead of the festival season. We are hoping there will be at least single-digit growth this year," he added.

Mathur refused to forecast growth but said, "In the first quarter of this fiscal year we have grown by 2.89 per cent. If the trend continues, we hope that we can end the year with a growth of anything between 5 and 10 per cent."

A new and stable government at the Centre could have bolstered consumer sentiment, he said. Extended excise concessions and tweaked income tax slabs have also helped.

Maruti Suzuki's sales grew 19.9 per cent in July to 90,093 cars. Hyundai's sales grew 12.7 per cent to 29,275 cars during the month.

New launches boosted sales for Honda and Toyota Kirloskar, whose sales grew, respectively, by 39.38 per cent and 3.53 per cent to 15,643 and 11,921 cars in the month.

Home-grown Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra, with no launches, continued to see sluggish demand in July. Tata Motors' sales fell 32.74 per cent to 12,143 and Mahindra & Mahindra was down 9.04 per cent to 16,569.

Motorcycle and scooter sales in July grew 13.73 per cent to 1,287,462 from 1,132,066 in the same month a year ago. Scooter sales were up 37.10 per cent to 372,136, and motorcycles were up 6.17 per cent to 859,290.

Truck and bus sales were down 13.64 per cent to 47,765. "This is the 15th consecutive month of decline in commercial vehicle sales. This sector is still a concern but we hope in the next 5-6 months it will also see a revival," Mathur said.

Total automobile sales in India grew 12 per cent to 1,586,123 in July from 1,416,182 in the same month a year ago.